Wednesday, December 18 will be remembered as the day in which the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to indict President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power, the other for obstruction of Congress. The day was full of buffoonish, over-the-top theatrics, and legal experts Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic stress in a December 23 article for The Atlantic that all of the silliness of December 18 doesn’t erase how serious a matter Trump’s impeachment is.
“The pettiness of the day masked the seriousness — even momentousness — of the events that took place,” Wittes and Jurecic observe. “This was, as the press reminded people unceasingly, only the third time in the country’s history that the House of Representatives has impeached a president. The Democrats were not entirely above the nonsense, offering endless platitudes that felt arch and preachy. But it was the Republican antics that threatened to make the process look ridiculous, though the allegations were, in fact, historic in their severity.”
Wittes and Jurecic are both key figures at the Lawfare blog: the 50-year-old Wittes is editor-in-chief and co-founder, while Jurecic is managing editor. Both of them werite for The Atlantic as well, and in their December 23 Atlantic article, they stress that some of Trump’s supporters in the House of Representatives turned the impeachment process into a circus. Continue reading
Public impeachment hearings will begin in the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, focused on whether President Trump abused the power of his office to enhance his reelection chances in 2020.